MONTREAL - Every year, Louise Lamoureux fields the same question: Will this edition of the International Balloon Festival of St. Jean sur Richelieu be the biggest one ever?

“It’s funny to always be asked that,” says the festival’s long-time concert director. “Last year we were saying it because of Adam Lambert. Two years before that, we were saying it because of Tokio Hotel. But I guess that’s a good thing, because it means we’re improving our lineup every year and people seem to take notice.”

Our summer festival lineup may seem bloated enough already, but in recent years Canada’s largest hot air balloon festival has carved its niche as a worthy late-summer rendezvous for pop music fans. With the Montreal International Jazz Festival and Osheaga camped in their respective musical corners, the balloon fest – which takes place about an hour east of Montreal at the St. Jean sur Richelieu airport – has been targeting high-profile top-40 pop acts that may not get frigid music critics reaching for superlatives, but have clearly struck a chord with young people and families – markets the festival organizers covet.

If this year’s fest does end up eclipsing previous iterations, it will be because there are multiple big-name acts scheduled to perform instead of the usual one or two must-sees. Saturday’s opening night will feature a pair of popular music’s most ubiquitous hitmakers, Ke$ha and LMFAO; also slated to perform are rappers Pitbull (Aug. 19) and Flo Rida (Aug. 20) and reggae star Sean Paul (Aug. 17).

Lamoureux says the festival has been working with event company Donald K. Donald (DKD) Events for the past four years to bring music’s most current stars to its neck of the woods.

“Every winter I start work on finding out who to bring,” she says. “I visit iTunes, YouTube, I check Billboard, Quebec radio stations and check to see who’s rising, or artists who are going to be big that summer. I also work with record labels to find out who will be releasing any new albums that summer.

“In the case of Pitbull and

LMFAO, they have albums that just came out, so that made sense. Most artists we booked this year were ones we approached for the first time, but in the case of Ke$ha we started work on her file last year.”

Lamoureux says it has become easier to attract international stars now that the likes of Rihanna, Akon, Wyclef Jean and Dennis De­Young have made successful appearances.

The balloon festival was created in 1984 to bring tourism to the region, and although music has always figured prominently, the fest scored its first major act in 1996 when it staged the first Backstreet Boys concert in Quebec. The 2009 and 2010 editions (which saw Simple Plan and Adam Lambert headline, respectively) each showed a 10 per cent spike in attendance from the previous year. According to communications coordinator Guillaume Poirier, of the 411,478 who visited the fest last year, about 20 per cent were from the Montreal area, and 13 per cent were from the South Shore.

Holding a festival during the dog days of summer has its challenges, Lamoureux points out. To ensure the event’s big catches don’t get poached by the competition, the fest’s musical guests are required to sign exclusivity contracts that prevent them from playing Montreal.

“You have to protect yourself,” Lamoureux says, “especially with us being at the end of summer. If an artist plays Quebec three or four times, their performance here won’t attract as much attention.”

It may seem like a tough sell for artists to skip Montreal in favour of more rural digs down the road, but the high-profile shows at the festival have been anything but small – former American Idol contestant Lambert drew 75,000 spectators last year, although the $20 to $25 single-day entry fee for adults is a far cry from what Osheaga patrons shell out.

Fortunately, the area where the event is held wasn’t affected by the flooding of the Richelieu River this spring. Poirier says festival organizers have sent out 4,000 invitations to flood-aid volunteers to attend for free on Aug. 18.

Another recent incident organizers watched intently was the stage collapse during July’s Ottawa Bluesfest, as the Bluesfest stage and the balloon festival’s Loto-Québec stage were both built by St. Jean sur Richelieu-based Groupe Berger. Lamoureux stands by Berger, “even though their name has been dragged through the mud recently.”

With all the attention heaped on the marquee names, the balloon festival remains a highly desired destination for well-known local artists. Singer-songwriter Ian Kelly contends that aside from Festival d’été in Quebec City and Osheaga, there aren’t too many other big summer events tailored to more current rock acts. Kelly has never played the balloon festival, but the former Spectrum sound technician and English-language singer – who has a cult following among francophones – can relate to playing in a less urban setting. The N.D.G. native relocated to Morin Heights a few years ago, and recorded his latest album Diamonds and Plastic there.

“I’m a Montrealer, but when you’re a musician you need to be able to make some noise without having noise around you, and it’s more easily achieved in the country,” says Kelly, who plays the fest on Aug. 15.

“I really hope the laid-back nature of the recording shows up on (Diamonds and Plastic),” Kelly says of the long-awaited follow-up to his 2008 breakthrough album, Speak Your Mind. “I rented the cottage right next to my house and we recorded in the basement. There was no pressure out there; if it wasn’t happening for us, we could go for a walk in the woods, come back and try recording again.”

As a means of supporting St. Jean-based artists, last year the balloon festival introduced the new-talent stage. “There are only a couple of places for bands to play in St. Jean; electronic music has taken over, and more places will just have a DJ instead of a real band,” says 22-year-old singer-songwriter Jeffrey Piton, who plays from Aug. 15 to 20.

The St. Jean-based folk artist performed on the new-talent stage last year and recently released his first EP, We All Heal Over Time. “Last year as we performed, all the balloons were lifting off to the side of the stage,” Piton recalls. “It was a really awesome moment.”

The International Balloon Festival of St. Jean sur Richelieu runs from Saturday to Aug. 21 at 5 Chemin de l’Aéroport, St. Jean sur Richelieu. For ticket information and showtimes, visit www.ballooncanada.com.

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